


Burgers & Lies

by realityisoverrated



Series: Infinite Love [9]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Multi, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Smoaking billionaires, Toliver, flommy, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realityisoverrated/pseuds/realityisoverrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy confronts Felicity about a secret she has been keeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burgers & Lies

**Author's Note:**

> This story depicts a polyamorous relationship between one woman and two men. If this is not something you are interested in, please stop and go no further.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments you have left for the series.
> 
> This series isn't told in chronological order - we will hop around in time. This fic is set nine months after the events of Part 4.
> 
> There are references to sexual situations below.
> 
> Arrow and its characters do not belong to me.

"Were we supposed to have lunch today?" Felicity's heels clicked loudly across her office floor, "Did I forget?"

Tommy smiled, "No, you didn't forget, but I'd love to take you, if you have time."

Felicity frowned as she looked over her schedule, "I have twenty-five minutes. I could ask Jerry to go grab us something from the cafeteria." Noticing the frown on his face, she quickly added, "Which I was going to do anyway because I always eat lunch. I never skip it. Burgers and fries?"

"I appreciate you lying to make me feel better, but I'd feel a lot better if it were actually true." Tommy loosened his tie as he looked around, "Where's Hildy?"

She rolled her eyes, "One of the techs in the laser lab got a Newfoundland puppy, she's in love and no longer has time for me. She only comes to see me when its nap time or time to go home and see her dads."

"The laser lab?" Tommy's voice was laced with concern, "Is it safe for her to be playing there."

Felicity stood on her toes and gave him a quick kiss, "Relax, your princess is perfectly safe. The dogs don't actually go into the lab with the lasers."

Felicity stepped out to give their order to Jerry. When she returned, Tommy was looking out the window, his tie bunched in his hand. "You're very handsome in your power suit. Isn't it a little early to be dressed up for Verdant?"

Tommy looked down at what he was wearing, "I had a meeting with the lawyers today."

"Oh?" Felicity sat down on the sofa, "We have so many of those these days, which ones?"

Tommy winced at the truth of her words, "Nothing earthquake or Malcolm related. I was meeting about the clinic and had to sign some papers on our tax exempt status."

Felicity visibly relaxed and held her hand out to him, "Well, I'm glad you ended up in my neck of the woods. Now that Applied Sciences isn't downtown, I never get to see you guys in daylight anymore."

He sat down next to her, "We had lunch last week."

"I know," she sighed, "it just feels like we've all been so busy that I only talk to Oliver if I'm giving him locations in his ear and I only get to see you when you're getting into bed after work." Tommy's fist clenched in his lap and his face looked pinched. She reached out to smooth the crease between his brow with her thumb, "What's going on?"

"I ran into Polly Mason." Tommy said pointedly.

Felicity's eyes went wide, "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Tommy removed her hand from his face.

"Tommy," Felicity started.

"It's strange, I asked her how everything was going with the sale of your townhouse and do you know what she told me?" he asked with mock innocence.

Felicity nodded her head slowly, "I do."

"Funny, because it shocked the hell out of me," Tommy said rising from the sofa.

Before she could respond, Jerry knocked lightly on the door and entered with their lunch. He left it on the coffee table and sensing the tension in the room, scurried out without saying a word. Tommy followed and shut the door behind him.

"Are we really going to have a fight about this now?" Felicity's fingers played with the hem of her skirt.

"When else are we going to fight about it?" Tommy struggled to keep his voice even and low enough so Jerry wouldn't hear. "As you pointed out earlier, we don't see each other very much anymore."

"I was going to tell you," she started pulling their lunches out of the bag, "but things have been busy."

"Does Ollie know?" Tommy sounded bitter.

She stood up at the tone of his voice, "No, but what does Oliver have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," he pushed his hands into his pockets and toed the edge of her area rug, "I'm just trying to figure out if you're just keeping secrets from me or if you're lying to the both of us."

"Don't be so dramatic," Felicity sat back down, "I took the townhouse off the market, I'm not sleeping with the entire Starling City Rockets."

He stormed over to the sofa, "On Sunday, while I was making you scrambled eggs, after we made love, did you or did you not tell me that the closing was probably going to be in the next two weeks."

Her eyes fell to the floor and she said softly, "I did."

"And that was a lie," Tommy's voice had gone cold, "according to Polly, you took your house off the market six months ago."

Felicity felt her eyes welling with tears and it made her angry, "I didn't know how to tell you."

"Tell me what? That you're leaving," he dropped onto the sofa, "or that you don't plan on staying long term? We've been in our home nine months and for the last six months you've been planning your exit strategy?"

She knew he was furious. Tommy didn't shout when he got angry, his voice became sharp, like it could cut her flesh from the bone. He had a right to be angry, she had been lying, but she was still angry at his accusations, "Of course not. I love our home. I love you. I love Oliver."

"Then why the escape plan?" Tommy moved closer to her, "I know you well enough to know that you holding onto the townhouse is an escape plan."

This was about to become a much bigger fight and she pulled away from him, "Can we table this until tonight? I promise, I'll come home before going to the lair and we can talk."

He placed a hand gently on her leg, "No, we're having this out now because I know how our life works. An alert is going to go off on your phone and you and Ollie are going to go off to save the world and I will just have to wait."

Felicity rose from her sofa and opened the office door, "Jerry, I need you to move my one o'clock."

"Thank you," Tommy said softly as she walked back towards him.

Instead of joining him on the sofa, she sat in the chair opposite from him, "Six months ago, when I said I was going to Coast City for a meeting, I didn't actually go," she held up her hand to hold off his question, "I didn't actually leave Starling City. My mom visited and we stayed at my townhouse."

"Your mom?" Realization slowly began to dawn on his face, "Your mom still thinks you live in the townhouse."

"Yes," she said plainly.

He laughed in disbelief, "But you told me that you told your mom."

She could feel her face redden in shame, "I didn't."

"How can," he looked down at his hands as he tried to regain his composure. "The papers all reported that the three of us bought the house together. She had to have seen the story."

"She did," Felicity nodded, "and I told her it was a lie to sell more newspapers."

"So, you lied to me about the townhouse, you lied to me about the trip to Coast City, you lied to me about telling your mom that you're in a relationship with Oliver and me and that we bought a home together. Anything else I'm missing?" When she didn't look at him he continued, "Come on, Felicity, one more lie and you'll tie Ollie's record for most secrets and lies told over burger and fries."

Felicity flinched, "That's not fair."

Tommy narrowed his eyes as he leaned towards her, "No, what's not fair is that the woman I love is too ashamed of me to tell her mom about me. What's not fair is that the woman I love has been lying to me, for months, about not wanting to live with me."

Felicity jabbed a finger in the air between them, "You're twisting everything. None of that is true. I'm not ashamed of you."

He looked at her with red eyes, "Your mom, does she still think that you're dating Ollie?"

"Yes," Felicity closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. When she'd told her mom she was dating Oliver it was very early in their relationship and the papers had published a picture of them kissing. It had been a partial lie, told to just keep her mom from asking more questions. Nearly two years later, that little lie to her mom was wielded like a weapon by Tommy. She swiped at a tear that had fallen onto her cheek.

"Does Ollie know about Coast City?" he asked in barely a whisper.

"Yes," the wounded look on his face caused her pain, "but he found out two months later. I made him promise not to tell you. If it helps, he was furious and he told me that I should tell you."

Tommy snorted, "So, now you have Ollie lying to me."

"Don't be angry with him. He thought it was my place to tell you." She sat up straighter, "It's not like you two don't keep things from me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tommy looked at her cautiously.

"Nothing, forget it," she stared at him in a silent challenge.

He stared back at her, waiting for her to tell him what secrets he was keeping. They sat in silence for a minute before he spoke, "So, you're not selling the townhouse so you have a place to pretend you live when your mom visits twice a year?"

"It's less suspicious than making her stay at the Fairmont and I'm pretty sure you and Oliver don't want to be asked to move out of the brownstone when she's in town."

Tommy took a deep breath in an attempt to deflate his anger. "I know it won't be easy, but Felicity it's been almost two years since we started this. You have to tell her. We can tell her together," Tommy offered gently. "She loves you and wants you to be happy."

"I know that my mom is all big hair and tight clothes, but this," she gestured between them,  "she won't understand. Her whole life she worked like a dog so I wouldn't have to. She wants me to have what she didn't have."

"One husband, a house in the suburbs, a dog and two point four kids," Tommy slumped back into the sofa.

"Yes," she said softly.

"Is that what you want?" Tommy almost sounded fearful.

Felicity wanted to laugh at the irony, she and Tommy have always feared the same thing, "This, us, it isn't what I ever thought I'd have, but I love my life. It's just not the right time to tell my mom."

"You're really keeping the townhouse so you don't have to come out to your mom?" Tommy didn't sound like he believed her.

"Having a place to stay with my mom is an unintended benefit of not selling the townhouse," Felicity admitted as she decided that if she'd already opened the can of worms she might as well spill them all over the floor, "but, you're right, I'm keeping the townhouse as a fallback position."

"Why?" even though he'd accused her of the same thing only minutes ago, he seemed shocked, "I thought we were happy. I thought you were happy."

She smiled genuinely, "I am happy."

He folded his hands and tapped them against his lips, "Happy people don't keep their bachelor pad just in case of a divorce."

Felicity took a deep breath and let the devil she'd been carrying around for months out, "The month after we moved into the brownstone, I went home early because I'd forgotten one of the prototype holo tablets. When I got there, you and Oliver were having sex."

Tommy shook his head in confusion. "So, Ollie and I were having sex. You and I have sex without Ollie, you have sex with Ollie without me."

Felicity nodded her head, "Yes, I know, it's silly but,"

"You were jealous?" Tommy's brow was still furrowed in confusion.

"No, not jealous," she took a deep breath, "I was afraid, " she clenched her fists and pushed them into her belly, "this pit formed in my stomach and it felt like I was about to lose everything."

His eyes welled with tears, "Felicity, that's the feeling you get when you think someone is cheating on you. Do you feel like we're cheating on you?"

She wiped a tear from her face but couldn't keep up as they fell from her eyes, "No, of course not - not exactly."

He held his hand out to her and she reluctantly took it. He pulled her around the coffee table and slid over so she could sit next to him, "Felicity, you're going to have to spell it out for me, because I really don't understand."

"When we have sex alone or I have sex with just Oliver, we never try to hide it. That was one of our big rules. If we don't talk about it, then it means we think we did something wrong and we agreed that whatever the three of us do, in whatever combination we do it, is not wrong. We can't cheat on one another with one another."

"Yes, I remember, I was there when we came up with the rules." His face was still scrunched up in confusion, "Ollie and I don't keep when we have sex from you."

Tears were streaming down her face, "But you didn't tell me about it. Not after that time. When I came home that night, you'd changed the sheets and the duvet cover. Neither of you mentioned it."

"Hey," he slid his hands up and down her arms, "I promise, we weren't hiding it from you. Why didn't you say something to me - to us?"

"As far as I knew, other than in the very beginning when you were first starting to be physical with one another and you wanted to experiment with just the two of you, you never had sex with one another without me there. I don't mean you getting each other off in the shower, I mean sex sex - intimacy."

Tommy leaned back and closed his eyes. She could tell that he was trying to remember, "You're right, except at the beginning, Ollie and I didn't have sex without you until we moved into the house." He opened his eyes and grabbed her hands between his, "Felicity, if we didn't tell you that time, it wasn't because we were keeping it secret. I don't know why we didn't tell you."

She looked away from him, "After that day and then that night when you didn't say anything, the pit in my stomach started growing. I was afraid."

"Afraid?" He cupped her cheek and tilted her head so she was looking at him, his own eyes filled with tears, "Felicity, I don't understand. I thought you and I were different. I thought we were the evolved ones who talked about our feelings and now I'm finding out that you've been keeping these secrets and you've been afraid all of these months and you didn't say anything, to me. Why?"

"Why didn't you and Oliver ever have sex before your relationship with me?" It was a question she'd asked them throughout their relationship and they had always answered, but this was the first time she feared the answer.

"Because we were afraid," he smiled at her, "and you made us brave."

She shook her head, because their answer was always the same or a variation of it. It was beautiful to believe, but she'd always thought there was more that they never wanted to admit to. "The two of you had drawn this invisible line in the sand when you were younger. As long as you didn't cross it, your feelings and some kissing didn't make you queer, right?"

"Felicity, we were kids and we were confused and then we grew up, Ollie died and came back from the dead and - things had changed." He ran his hand over her head and down her ponytail until he was clasping the back of her neck, "We didn't know how to find our way back to each other again, not until you showed us the way."

She took hold  of his hand, "I know, I made it easier for you to talk about your feelings with one another - and to act on them."

He kissed her hand, "You're our gift. We'd be lost without you."

"I was your bridge." At his look of confusion she continued, "What did it matter if you had your hand between Oliver's legs if your head was between mine?"

Tommy shrank away from her like her words had burned him, "You think we only had sex with you so we could have sex with each other? How can you believe that?"

"Tommy, I didn't - I don't it - it is a fear," she waved a hand over head, "that runs around in here every once in awhile. After that night I started thinking, what if you realize you don't need me?"

"Not need you?" Tommy ran his hands through his hair.

She gripped the lapels of his coat and rested her head against his chest, "If you and Oliver can have sex without me there, then maybe you don't need me anymore."

His hands dropped to the top of her head and down to her shoulders, "So, whenever you have sex with just Ollie, am I supposed to think you don't need me anymore."

She pulled back so she could look at him, but her fingers still held onto his coat, "No, of course not. When I'm alone with either of you it's about needing to be close and because I love you."

Tommy arched an eyebrow, "So why would it be any different for me with Ollie?"

Felicity opened her mouth, but sound didn't follow. She tried again, "When I have sex with you or Oliver I'm still having sex with a guy, my preference hasn't changed."

His eyebrows flew up, "So, this is about penises?"

"No," she hesitated, "maybe. What if you guys realize that you prefer men and I'm superfluous?"

"Okay, first, don't use big words when I'm already confused." He pulled her onto his lap, "Second, but most importantly, I love you. I'm in love with you. Third, I love having sex with you and if I haven't been enthusiastic enough in illustrating how much I love having sex with you then I'm prepared to prove it to you." He titled his head back and waited for her to kiss him. He didn't have to wait long.

"I'm sorry about lying about the townhouse and my mom." She rested her forehead against his neck, "I'm just not ready yet."

He kissed the top of her head and rubbed soothing circles along her back, "I only care that you haven't been honest with me about how you've been feeling. We're supposed to be partners. I'm supposed to help you carry some of your burdens."

"You do." She looked into his eyes, "I just didn't want to disappoint you."

He dropped his head onto her shoulder and groaned, "How did I turn into my father?"

"What?" she tilted his chin up and was alarmed to find fresh tears in his eyes, "Tommy, you are nothing like your father."

He shook his head in disbelief, "One of the people I love most in the world is afraid to tell me the truth because she doesn't want to disappoint me. That sounds way too familiar."

"It isn't the same," she ran her fingers through his hair, "it isn't the same. I've just been a little slower adjusting and I didn't want you to think that it meant that I don't love you."

"We're going to have to talk about this more," Tommy moved her off his lap, "and we need to include Ollie in this conversation."

"Tommy," Felicity took hold of his hand.

He rested his hand against her neck and rubbed his thumb against her cheek, "No more secrets. We need to have a conversation about the townhouse, about your mom and your fears about Ollie and me leaving you. It's not fair to keep him in the dark and you need to hear it from both of us. We're not going anywhere."

She closed her eyes, "Okay."

"Good." He kissed the tip of her nose, pulled out his phone and sent a text.

Her phone pinged on the coffee table, she reached for it and read the message. It was from Tommy to her and Oliver. She read it aloud, " _Starling City is on her own tonight. Priority one._ " She looked up at him as she slid onto the sofa next to him, "Are you crazy? Priority one? He's going to think one of us is dying." As if on cue, both of their phones pinged, " _Are you okay?_ " she raised her eyebrow. "Great, he's probably heading home as we speak."

Tommy chuckled, "I'm sure he checked our trackers and sees that we're safe and together." He sent off another text.

Her phone chimed again, " _Nothing life or death, but it's important._ " Her phone immediately sounded, " _See you at seven._ " She turned the phone so he'd see that Oliver had sent the kissy face emoji along with a glass of wine, a slice of pizza, a train, a building and a chicken. The guys over-using emojis had become something of a joke.

He smiled and sent a response, "I told him that we'd see him later."

Her phone chimed and she read the message that was accompanied by two kissy faces, a lime, a pie and a frog. She clutched her hands together nervously, "What are you going to tell him?"

He started to open the containers Jerry had brought them, "I'm not tattling on you. We're just going to tell him about our day and we're going to talk about how you're feeling and how we can help you feel less afraid. Everything is going to be okay, I promise."

"You make it sound easy," she took the plate he handed her.

"I know it won't be easy, but nothing worth having ever is," he winked at her as he took a bite of his burger.

She felt the tension drain out of her, "I'm going to tell Oliver you're quoting him now."

He groaned, "Don't, he'll be unbearable."

"Now, who's keeping secrets," she teased.

"Eat. Your two o'clock will be here any minute and you're going to want to wash your face. Good god, woman," he gently wiped at her face with a clean napkin, "you're a hot mess, Smoak."

She started to laugh as she caught her reflection in the coffee table. Her mascara had run, her eyes were red and puffy and her nose was running. She leaned over and kissed him, "I'm really glad you stopped by today."

Tommy kissed her again softly as he looked in her eyes, "Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are always welcomed and appreciated.
> 
> I expect to post a fic on Saturday. Felicity has been away for two weeks and Oliver and Tommy welcome her home. There might be smut. ;-)


End file.
